Interesting difference between critics and audiences here. Critics gave it poor reviews but audiences gave it a whopping 5 multiplier in the summer

I believe it was the combination of star-power and summer holidays from a known director that helped the movie. Also the reviews aren't completely trash just not glowing, a lot of horror thrillers thrive with mid-40's RT score, also was RT/critics reviews a thing back then?

Word of mouth probably.

I've never seen this, I've always wanted to though lol

It released almost exactly a year after The Sixth Sense and was during a box office transition period (it would be the last time until 2020 that the #1 movie failed to gross over $300M. Potter, Rings and Spider-Man changed the game). Ford and Pfeifer in a soapy ghost story that has a wild ending must have hit the spot even with poor reviews.

It's reviews were soft, but very good for mainstream audiences. Ford was still Ford, and it was probably the last good summer movie.

Summer 2000 was very adult driven. Outside of X-Men and Mission Impossible 2, the bigger and more memorable films were Gladiator, The Patriot, The Perfect Storm, What Lies Beneath, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Space Cowboys. Ironically Ford turned down both The Perfect Storm and The Patriot as well. Outside of Gladiator, I'd say they are all on par quality wise. Great fun films that don't push the expectations of the audience they are going after. Ford and Pheifer were great, and I prefer this one to the Sixth Sense.

It was a well liked movie, it would be nice if they made more adult thrillers like that. Double Jeopardy is another movie with good legs that has a poor RT.

I saw it in the theater a couple times. I loved it at the time. I think general audiences did as well. Plus it appealed to a pretty adult audience and generally those films are leggier because they don't rush out right away.

It's honestly been years since I've seen this one. I've been waiting for it to get a Blu-ray release which it somehow hasn't yet.

Same.

Zemeckis is an all-time top tier director for me despite an uneven track record this century.

Yeah it was good and audiences loved it. I remember seeing it and loving it too.

Plus when horror films catch on - they really catch on.

Great summer for adult films indeed.

Also, the OP mentions the reviews. More than half the reviews on RT are from years after the release. It has a 6.6/10 on IMDB and had a B+ cinema score, which means it was solid. That's honestly the only reason RT will never be more than novelty for me. Too many inconsistencies with older movies. I mean Blade Runner has a 90% score when back in 1982 I doubt it would have even pulled 35%.

And it was a highly produced 100 million ghost film with A-List in front and behind the camera. That doesn't come around often, and if it did today it probably wouldn't even cost more than 25 to make today. I remember it being a very influential film for effects at the time as well. But I think my favorite story is this movie's production really only came about because Zemeckis needed something to do while Hanks was losing weight for the 2nd half of Cast Away.